Sustain

Julia Ferraioli

Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman | Alyssa Wright

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we have joining us as our guest, Julia Ferraioli, who’s an open source human, co-founded Open Source Stories, and has been part of the Sustain community for a while. Our conversations today take us through learning about Julia’s background, what Open Source Stories is, and how she quantifies a black swan open source. We also learn about two camps of people who work on open source that Julia encountered, a detailed explanation of what “matters” means, and what Julia does when she works on standardizing open source information. Go ahead and download this episode now to hear more!

[00:01:40] Julia talks about her history and how she got to where she is today.

[00:02:43] What is Open Source Stories?

[00:06:05] We find out the story how Julia and Amanda Casari ended up working together on Open Source Stories.

[00:10:48] Julia explains how she quantifies a black swan open source and what she worries about in terms of recognition.

[00:15:11] Alyssa asks Julia if there are people that are contributing to open source projects that don’t feel recognized and acknowledged and if there’s an invisible community that we’re trying to not only grow and diversify.

[00:16:32] Justin shares a story about Guist, a designer he worked on a Zsh project with.

[00:18:07] Julia brings up how you can sponsor a developer on GitHub, but wonders if you can sponsor a designer on GitHub.

[00:20:00] Alyssa asks Julia why we have to recognize people in order to sustain the open source software communities.

[00:23:35] Richard brings up the topic of recognition of individuals and how do we make sure that recognition is equal across the board, and Julia shares her thoughts.

[00:26:57] Julia explains two camps she’s encountered, the camp where the contribution matters and the camp where the whole person matters.

[00:30:03] We find out what “matters” means to the whole ecosystem, what matters to a sub ecosystem, and what matters to a project.

[00:32:42] What does Julia work on when she works on standardizing open source information?

[00:35:18] Find out where you can follow Julia online.

[00:08:14] “The conversations that we have tend to lead to some really interesting explorations and one of our talks was about black swans and open source.”

[00:10:51] “I think it’s completely subjective.”

[00:13:22] “We’ve made really good strides in recognizing contributions outside of code such as technical writing, triage, and code reviews.”

[00:14:15] “It’s really important as more and more companies are relying on open source because it makes it into products.”

Special Guest: Julia Ferraioli.

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Colin Eberhardt

Richard Littauer | Ben Nickolls

Link.

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, joining us as our guest is Colin Eberhardt, who’s the CTO at Scott Logic, which is a UK based software consultancy, and a member of FINOS. Colin tells us about Scott Logic, the journey he’s been on there, and how his view of open source has changed over the years being in this industry. We learn more about a talk he did on “Why I Love Open Source” and he goes in depth of what marketing means to him. Also, Colin explains what he calls the “roll up your sleeves and help model,” and find out about Beyond the Hype, a podcast by Scott Logic, and what it’s all about. Go ahead and download this episode now to find out more!

[00:01:34] Colin tells us about Scott Logic and how he got interested in software sustainability.

[00:03:15] Colin explains how his view of open source has changed over time and more about the journey he’s been on with Scott Logic.

[00:06:04] Richard asks Colin if he sees donating money as an individual choice by the responsible members of the corporate environment or if there’s structural reasons to give back, and he tells us about a talk he did on “Why I Love Open Source.”

[00:08:37] How does open source make you better at marketing?

[00:12:12] Ben wonders how Colin sees the conversation happening on how organizations can sustain support, whether it’s open source work that they’re producing or consuming themselves. He explains what he calls the “roll up your sleeves and help model.”

[00:16:16] Colin brings up a survey they ran with Fintech Open Source Foundation and one of the results he found fascinating.

[00:17:54] Richard asks Colin if he’s thought about taxation, standards, or ways where people are required to contribute back to open source.

[00:21:03] Ben wonders if Colin is thinking at Scott Logic about how to involve some of those people who aren’t necessarily working in classic open source developer roles to get involved, and how he’s thinking about projects abilities to bring on those people.

[00:24:44] Colin tells us about the best data he’s seen by the Linux Foundation FOSS Contributor Survey, that’s targeted at maintainers and contributors.

[00:26:10] We hear Colin’s idea for a project he had that analyzed open source projects to try to measure their health.

[00:33:58] Find out where you can follow Colin online and his podcast.

[00:09:04] “Generally speaking, most people create open source projects because they want others to use them. Learning how to market your creation, and I don’t mean adverts at marketing it. And for each one of them, if I can understand what the Unique Selling Points are of this project, that’s what I mean by marketing.”

Special Guest: Colin Eberhardt.

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Stefano Maffulli

Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we have joining us Stefano Maffulli, who’s the new Executive Director for the Open Source Initiative (OSI). Our conversations center around Stefano taking us through what OSI can do and we learn more about how it’s changing. He also tells us about the biggest debate that’s happening in the community, a podcast series they are releasing called Deep Dive AI, and some things he’s most excited about happening in the next few months with the OSI. Go ahead and download this episode now to find out much more!

[00:02:03] Stefano fills us in on his background and how he got into his role at the OSI.

[00:04:49] When coming into the ED role, Stefano explains what he was most excited about doing.

[00:07:21] Stefano shares his ideas and what he’s started since being at the OSI.

[00:09:13] We hear Stefano’s thoughts on dual licensing being part of the open source ecosystem that isn’t negative, and ethical source licenses being big ten open source, and how he sees the OSD changing.

[00:11:27] What are the biggest debates that are happening in the community?

[00:17:35] A podcast series is mentioned by Stefano, and Justin wonders if this a new way to diversify the revenue that’s coming in and if there’s any other initiatives Stefano has that is going to increase that.

[00:22:33] Richard wonders how Stefano expects to mitigate corporate interest ruling OSI’s agenda.

[00:29:33] We learn how Stefano is hoping to involve people for affiliates who don’t have time to read all the legal stuff in his mailing list.

[00:31:42] Stefano tells us what he’s most excited happening in the next few months with the OSI.

[00:34:07] Find out where you can follow Stefano on the web and become a member of the OSI.

[00:09:26] “I do think that technology is not neutral.”

Special Guest: Stefano Maffulli.

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Cornelius Schumacher | Yadira Sánchez Benítez | Thomas Fricke

Richard Littauer

Hello and welcome to Sustain! On this episode, Richard is at the FOSS Backstage 2022 that is held in Berlin every year. This conference focuses on open source sustainability. He had the opportunity to interview people who were there in-person and talk about software sustainability, what they hope to find in FOSS Backstage, talks they did at FOSS Backstage, and a bunch of other good stuff. Today, we have three guests joining us. Our first guest is Cornelius Schumacher, who’s an Open Source Steward at DB Systel GmbH, where he helps teams to use open source software and to contribute to open source software. Our next guest is Yadira Sánchez Benítez, who’s a Criminology and Human-Centered AI Doctoral Student at the Faculty of Social Sciences & Web Science Institute and a Fellow at the Software Sustainability Institute. And our last guest is Thomas Fricke, who’s doing Kubernetes security consulting and started a side business supporting companies doing open source. Download this episode to find out much more!

[00:01:09] Richard gives us a brief intro about Cornelius, what he did back in 2009, and Cornelius shares his view on open source now and his current job.

[00:06:12] Looking at FOSS Backstage today, Cornelius tells us what he thinks is different now, given the amount of perspective he has, then what it used to be.

[00:09:35] Cornelius details where we can improve or do better in open source.

[00:11:35] Find out where to follow Cornelius online.

[00:12:42] Yadira joins us and tells us everything she does, as well as what it has to do with criminology and human-centered AI.

[00:15:55] Richard asks Yadira what structures we’ve built into open source which are actively excluding marginalized communities and how we can build a better open source ecosystem going forward that’s more sustainable and diverse.

[00:18:44] Yadira explains why she’s in an institution saying don’t make your software from institutions.

[00:20:50] We find out about what open source projects can do to be more communitarian, and what open source program offices and large enterprises can do to be less dominating and single-minded in their approaches towards building software.

[00:22:38] Yadira talks about the way she sees open source working by mostly voluntary contributions and people who want to be a part of this.

[00:25:39] Thomas joins us and tells us what he’s currently doing and some news in Germany about a Sovereign Tech Fund.

[00:28:11] How does Thomas quantify what open source is critical information?

[00:29:58] We learn about a little bit of the work going on by the German government that Thomas is advising on the topic about what’s critical or not.

[00:31:05] Richard and Thomas chat about the meaning of sovereign in Germany.

[00:34:21] Thomas explains more about when he mentioned earlier, “forty-year old code packages just working,” and what he thinks about what kinds of packages need what level of support.

[00:38:17] Find out if Thomas sees a future where we all work together to shore up the ecosystems and make it more sustainable and secure?

[00:39:33] A study on critical infrastructure is brought up and Richard wonders if Thomas sees a way for developers to be able to raise issues to the state or to the $10 million funds to help them out on an ecosystem level.

[00:40:44] What does Thomas see coming in the next five to ten years?

[00:42:53] Find out where you can follow Thomas online.

Special Guests: Cornelius Schumacher, Thomas Fricke, and Yadira Sánchez Benítez.

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Rich Bowen | Paul Berschick

Richard Littauer

Hello and welcome to Sustain! On this episode, Richard is at the FOSS Backstage 2022 that is held in Berlin every year. This conference focuses on open source sustainability. He had the opportunity to interview people who were there in-person and talk about software sustainability, what they hope to find in FOSS Backstage, talks they did, and a bunch of other good stuff. Our first guest is Richard Bowen, who’s been doing open source stuff for over twenty years, most recently at Red Hat, and just started working at AWS in the open source group. We also have another guest, Paul Berschick, who is one of the organizers of FOSS Backstage, and does Open Source Events at Plain Schwarz. Go ahead and download this episode now to find out more!

[00:00:58] Rich tells us what he’s doing now since leaving Red Hat.

[00:02:13] We hear about Rich’s talk he did on, “Delivering Bad News: Helping your community through a rough patch.”

[00:04:45] Rich shares his thoughts on what happens when incentives don’t align.

[00:07:40] If you want a great read, Rich tells us a fantastic book to look into called, The Art of Community: Seven Principles of Belonging by Charles Vogl, as well as sharing advice to hang out with other Community Managers and to listen to his talk if you want to learn something.

[00:10:25] How does Rich sees the role of Community Managers going and how does he think of community?

[00:14:25] Find out where you can follow Rich online.

[00:15:47] We now have Paul Berschick joining us and he tells us about Plain Schwarz.

[00:17:02] Paul explains how much FOSS Backstage has grown since 2018, including the pandemic and how that changed.

[00:21:35] How is Paul working to recreate and enable the amazing connections that he makes with people through FOSS Backstage for people who are remote?

[00:25:28] Richard wonders how Paul has noticed, given his place of an event organizer, that his particular clientele influences how he builds these spaces, and if it changes how he views things because he does open source stuff.

[00:27:52] Paul shares how he feels he’s helping the ecosystem as a whole besides just having a one-off conference.

[00:30:47] Does Paul feel FOSS Backstage could do better at accessing the rest of the long tail open source developers?

[00:33:31] Paul shares ideas with having satellite events in other places where there’s a more diverse listenership and how would that work.

[00:35:24] Find out where you can follow Paul online.

Special Guests: Paul Berschick and Rich Bowen.

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Ana Jiménez Santamaría | McCoy Smith

Richard Littauer

Hello and welcome to Sustain! On this episode, Richard is at the FOSS Backstage 2022 that is held in Berlin every year. This conference focuses on open source sustainability. He had the opportunity to interview people who were there in-person and talk about open source software sustainability, what they hope to find in FOSS Backstage, the talks they did, and a bunch of other good stuff. Our first guest is Ana Jiménez Santamaría, who is the OSPO Program Manager at the TODO Group, a Linux Foundation project. We also have another guest, McCoy Smith, who is the Founding Attorney of Lex Pan Law, where he specializes in patents, copyrights, and free and open source licensing. Go ahead and download this episode now to find out much more!

[00:01:48] Ana tells us what she does at The Linux Foundation. She also explains more about the TODO Group, how the memberships are structured, what TODO offers, and what she offers as an OSPO manager there.

[00:05:23] Ana gave a talk and was part of a panel at FOSS Backstage and she shares her perspective on InnerSource versus Open Source and what TODO does with InnerSource.

[00:09:46] Richard asks Ana what she thinks is the right way for corporations to give back, what the ratio is of giving back to the open source community, and how do you do that in a good way.

[00:12:32] We find out what TODO does to help organizations coordinate their giving back to open source projects.

[00:14:47] Looking at the TODO Group and looking ahead in the next three to five years, Ana tells us what she’s most excited about making.

[00:17:24] Richard asks Ana if TODO Group offers anything towards the midsize or mini OSPO companies and what do they offer.

[00:19:17] Ana explains more about OSPOlogy.

[00:21:37] Find out the best way to get involved in TODO Group.

[00:24:15] Our next guest, McCoy Smith, joins us and shares his background.

[00:26:44] McCoy gives us the details on the talk he did at FOSS Backstage on, \

[00:30:14] Does enforcement matter for most open source projects?

[00:31:49] Richard asks McCoy about proliferation of licenses and wonders if that’s even an issue or how he views it affecting the open source space.

[00:34:17] We find out if McCoy is seeing open source being more of a liability for law than it used to be like for legal parts of large corporations or if he’s seeing open source focus on security more than it used to be.

[00:37:22] McCoy tells us about some different initiatives that are happening with OSPO’s.

[00:39:23] Find out what’s most interesting to McCoy today about open source.

[00:41:38] Richard brings up a blog post Kyle Mitchell wrote, and McCoy shares his thoughts about it.

[00:44:48] Find out where you can follow McCoy on the web.

Special Guests: Ana Jiménez Santamaría and McCoy Smith.

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Florian Gilcher | Silona Bonewald

Richard Littauer

Hello and welcome to Sustain! On this episode, Richard is at the FOSS Backstage 2022 that is held in Berlin every year. This conference focuses on open source and sustainability. He had the opportunity to interview people who were there in-person and talk about software sustainability, what they hope to find in FOSS Backstage, and a bunch of other good stuff. Joining him today are two guests, the first is Florian Gilcher, a Rustacean, CEO of Asquera, Managing Director of Ferrous Systems, and a Founding member of Rust Foundation. We also have Silona Bonewald, who is the Executive Director of IEEE SA OPEN. Go ahead and download this episode now to hear more!

[00:01:00] Florian tells his background, what he does now, and how he gets community funded.

[00:03:36] We learn that Florian is one of the Founding members of the Rust Foundation, and how he shares how he decided to build his for-profit company, Ferrous Systems, instead of just getting open source to pay him for everything.

[00:09:16] Richard wonders if Florian sees more foundations working well with companies that are service providers as a viable means of actually making open source projects sustainable in the future.

[00:12:13] Find out where you can follow Florian on the web.

[00:12:54] Silona tells us more about the IEEE SA OPEN.

[00:14:52] We hear about what it means to have an open source standard and where are these standards being applied.

[00:18:58] Silona shares with us what her dream is for ten years from now for the output of this governance group.

[00:22:06] We hear about Silona’s talk she did at FOSS Backstage called, It Takes a Village, where she talked about diversity and what it means to grow open source.

[00:25:39] Silona tells us how to use the IEEE platform and sign up if you’re interested in starting a new project at your company, and she explains how the adoption has been.

[00:28:59] How does funding work on IEEE SA OPEN projects?

[00:30:42] Over the next year or two, Silona talks about what collaborations are going to make it better for people who use the platform and what she’s excited about.

[00:33:06] Find out where you can follow Silona on the web.

Special Guests: Florian Gilcher and Silona Bonewald.

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Mike McQuaid

Richard Littauer

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about software sustainability for the long haul. Today, I’m very excited to have as my guest from Edinburgh, Mike McQuaid, who’s a Principal Engineer at GitHub and the Project Leader of Homebrew. Mike fills us in on Homebrew, how he became the Project Lead, and the Homebrew journey towards software sustainability. We also find out how Mike applies Brené Brown’s acronym “BRAVING” to his work on open source, and about his involvement with GitHub Sponsors. Go ahead and download this episode now to find out much more!

[00:01:26] Mike explains what Homebrew is, who originally created it, and how he became one of the lead maintainers.

[00:05:41] Since Mike is the Homebrew Project Leader at GitHub, Richard wonders why they need an OSX related package manager and Mike explains how that happened.

[00:07:06] We learn how Mike worked on Homebrew as open source on company time and the importance of choosing priorities.

[00:11:57] Mike goes in depth about the Homebrew sustainability journey, mentoring other maintainers, and the value of feature flagging in Homebrew.

[00:16:45] Richard wonders how Mike talks to people about whether or not they’re a good candidate to be a mentor.

[00:20:12] We hear about the meaning of the “BRAVING” acronym from Brené Brown’s podcast and book, and how it applies to Mike’s work on open source.

[00:25:36] Where is there room in Mike’s open source boundary setting for grace?

[00:31:07] Mike was on the GitHub Sponsors team and we find out how he got involved with it, and why it has been such a valuable contribution to the open source ecosystem.

[00:37:05] We learn what Mike thinks the next step of sustainability might be in terms of helping open source maintainers from a non-individualistic approach.

[00:42:15] Find out where you can follow Mike on the web.

[00:22:12] “I think boundaries are the most important part of open source sustainability, at the end of the day you should be only working on the stuff that you want to be working on.”

Special Guest: Mike McQuaid.

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Álvaro Trigo

Richard Littauer | Amanda Casari | Ben Nickolls

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Our guest today is Álvaro Trigo, who is an open source developer and maintainer of fullPage.js, which is an open source package that helps you figure out how to make a full-page website. He’s made this into a business. Álvaro shares his story of working as a full-stack developer, how fullPage.js came to fruition for him, things he’s learned since starting his business, and some difficult things he’s encountered in his job. We also learn more about some other cool projects Álvaro has created such as fullSnap.io and fullstats.io, how he uses different platforms to enable his business, and why he encourages people to create open source projects. Go ahead and download this episode now, and if you enjoyed this podcast, please let us know!

[00:02:07] Álvaro tells us how it all started with his career, working at fullPage.js., and what the usage stats look like on this project.

[00:04:15] We learn how Álvaro started getting paid for fullPage.js.

[00:06:27] Álvaro talks about some things he wishes he would have known before starting his self-owned business.

[00:07:30] Find out what the reaction has been within the community on the open source side, and if there’s been an uplift in contributions and activity within this project in addition to the work Álvaro’s been doing in the extensions.

[00:08:26] Amanda wonders if Álvaro has any goals or models for community contributions or onboarding additional maintainers.

[00:09:42] Richard wonders if Álvaro has ever seen anyone take an add-on and implement it in open source and then give it away for free.

[00:15:09] Álvaro shares what’s difficult for him right now with his job.

[00:17:14] Why is it easier to monetize other kinds of projects?

[00:19:43] We hear about two other projects Álvaro has created: fullSnap.io and fullstats.io.

[00:21:00] When Álvaro thinks about a new project he shares how monetizing is easier.

[00:22:44] Amanda explains the new General Public License version 3.

[00:23:58] We hear Álvaro’s views on supporting the software that he’s building on.

[00:26:00] Gulp.js is one of the main dependencies that Álvaro uses at fullPage.js, and we find out if he would be more interested in paying all the way down the stack or giving money or time towards Gulp.

[00:32:41] Álvaro sharing some final thoughts and where you can follow him online.

[00:12:21] “At the end of the day, if I am able to monetize it and [competitors] are not, I’m able to spend more time on it.”

[00:21:36] “The fact that you can monetize something makes it easier for you to support and improve it.”

[00:21:57] “Providing something for free is a good way to validate a project, to see if there is enough interest or not.”

[00:29:00] “I don’t think providing a contribution is the same as maintaining the project as a whole.”

Special Guest: Alvaro Trigo.

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Emily Shaffer

Richard Littauer | Eric Berry

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we’re going to have some great conversations with our guest, Emily Shaffer, who is a Software Developer for Google working on Git, which is an open source project. Emily fills us in on Git’s governance, deadnaming, submodules, Git Hooks, and GitGitGadget. We also learn more about a tutorial she wrote for people who are trying to learn how to contribute, called My First Contribution, we learn what her day to day experience looks like, and what she’s most excited about happening in the next year in Git. Go ahead and download this episode now to find out more!

[00:02:29] Emily explains why she was at the Embedded Linux Conference.

[00:04:09] We learn about Git’s governance, who runs it, and who works on it.

[00:05:41] The topic of software developers working full-time on Git and being paid is brought up, and Richard wonders if things are moving in certain ways because of the number of paid employees on the project.

[00:14:27] Richard wonders what efforts have been done in changing the name and email when you change a Git commit, and Emily explains how they use a Mail Map.

[00:20:52] Emily tells us about GitGitGadget.

[00:22:19] Before switching to Git, Emily was working on a similar project and Richard asks how many of the contributors are hobbyists, and she explains “scratching your own itch.”

[00:23:45] Emily explains the onboarding process and how she wrote a tutorial for people who are trying to learn to contribute called, My First Contribution.

[00:25:43] Richard wonders if there’s a guide for people who are interested in writing something for their own project, and Emily shares suggestions on what people can do.

[00:27:03] We learn about the working group Git has.

[00:29:07] Find out what Emily’s experience is on a day-to-day basis with having a Foundation be the home for Git.

[00:31:32] What is Emily most excited about happening in Git in the next year?

[00:34:14] Eric wonders if Emily ever reaches for GUI tool to manage her Git or if she is just CLI, and she shares a hot tip.

[00:37:00] Find out where you can follow Emily online.

[00:25:58] “Writing a new contributor document works well if you already don’t know what is going into the document.”

Special Guest: Emily Shaffer.

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